The More Things Change
by Serena Thorn
Summary: Like mother, like daughter...


Title: The More Things Change

Summary: Like mother, like daughter…

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: Veronica Mars is not owned by me, but by Rob Thomas. I'm simply borrowing these characters for non-profit entertainment.

A/N: Because some days you just need some DoVe fluff.

* * *

Sitting on the sofa, he couldn't believe it for the life of him. He had let his daughter go out with a deputy. A deputy five years older than his daughter.

He had cleaned his gun no less than three times in the last half an hour, just waiting for her to come back through the door. So help him if even one blonde strand was out of place. Help him, yes because there would be nothing of that deputy left if he even suspected he had touched his little girl.

Maybe most wouldn't consider a seventeen-year-old to be a little girl, but she was his baby. She would always be his little girl and he was nothing if not a protective father.

He knew what deputies were like. He had been one himself until twenty years ago. More and more he was hating this. His daughter's curfew wasn't even for another ten minutes, but he was already anticipating her being late. A useful deputy or not he was already envisioning castrating the kid.

"How did I know you'd already have your gun out and waiting?" he heard his wife ask from behind him.

"If she's even a second late, I swear -"

"My dad didn't do this to you."

"Who do you think I learned this from?" he shot back. Okay, maybe he would have been like this anyway (this was his only daughter after all and this was a deputy he saw every day), but the statement still stood.

Seven minutes later the door opened and in walked his princess with a smile he knew all too well. Of course he knew it, it was identical to her mother's when she was up to something.

Of course said smile faded the second her blues fell to the coffee table. An extra clip? Did her father really have to be so obvious? "I'm so glad I never open the door until after Ethan's gone," Victoria sighed.

"How was your date?" Veronica asked, ignoring her husband's glare in her direction.

How was he supposed to strike yet more fear into the kid if he couldn't see just how prepared he was even at home and out of uniform? There was a time his oh so loving father-in-law and former employer had bullets reserved for the day he screwed up badly enough to earn a round in the nuts. Now the tradition had been handed down from sheriff father to sheriff father.

"It was great," the blonde girl smiled. Then she met her father's gaze. "Though it'd be nice too if I could invite Ethan to dinner every now and then and not have to wonder if Daddy's trigger finger is going to get itchy if he sits just an inch too close to me."

Lamb sighed and reclined against the sofa, for once leaving his gun on the coffee table. "You should be glad I'm so protective of you. And it could be worse. Ask Grandpa Keith how thrilled he was to get the news that your mother and I were dating."

"I know. You still have the scar, I get it. I've heard the story a thousand times," she groaned.

Veronica couldn't help but laugh as she watched history repeating itself right there in her living room.

And still have the scar, Don did - on his left leg. It was Keith's 'gift' to him the night Veronica had stayed at Lamb's then-apartment too late. It didn't matter that she had been nineteen at the time, she still lived under his roof, neither had informed him of their relationship and he wanted Lamb to know he was serious about how far he would go to protect his daughter. Plus it wasn't like Keith had really meant to hit him. The bullet had only grazed Don's leg. If he had meant to hit him he would have taken out his good knee (he had made sure to remember which one Don had blown out back in college for such an occasion). Still it got the job done. Veronica had a ring within the month.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have a phone call to make," Victoria sighed as she headed up the stairs to her bedroom.

Veronica was still smiling as she moved to the sofa to sit beside her lovely husband. "You really should be nicer to the boy. My dad wasn't that mean to you."

"You don't count making me look like an idiot or shooting me as being mean?" he asked with a cocked brow.

"He never threatened you with being a target when going to the range."

"No, he made me one in my own bedroom."

"It could've been higher. Be thankful for what you have," she smirked as she slid her hand teasingly along his inner thigh.

He snatched her hand before she could move it higher, there were some things their daughter still didn't need to see. Her mother feeling up her father on a sofa identical to the one she had been conceived on was close to the top of the list.

"I am. But for the record I wasn't still working for your father when we started dating."

"She likes him. Be. Nice."

"I'm always nice," he smirked.

"Remember our deal," Veronica stated as she managed to get her hand back and scooted closer to him.

"Not to shoot him until he gives me a real reason," Lamb sighed. It shouldn't count given how she had gotten him to agree to that and yet she still insisted that it did. "Though you did promise to let me shoot him, wherever I want, if she comes to us within the year announcing that she's pregnant."

Veronica only laughed. Some things really never changed.

The End


End file.
